about

Sam Tucker-Smith is a composer, lyricist, pianist, orchestrator, and music director. He is currently a senior at Yale University. His musicals include Three Sisters (book, music, lyrics) and Isaac in Motion (book by Ali Benjamin).

Sam studied with Steven Lutvak (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) from early 2020 until Lutvak’s passing in late 2023. At Yale, he has studied composition with Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home) and Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens), music direction with Joel Fram (Merrily We Roll Along), and song interpretation with five-time Grammy winner Dawn Upshaw. He was a recipient of the Selden Memorial Award in music and Abraham Beekman Cox Prize in composition from Yale.

As accompanist and coach for Yale’s Shen Curriculum for Musical Theater, Sam has played classes and masterclasses for artists such as Victoria Clark, Joshua Henry, Andréa Burns, Tom Kitt, Maria Friedman, and Merri Sugarman.

Sam’s work has been heard at 54 Below (in The Harvard-Yale Cantata), at The Green Room 42 (in Little Red Light Theater's A Night to Celebrate New Musical Theater), and at the Library of Congress (in Loewe and Behold, music direction by Ted Sperling).

He has also studied nonfiction writing with Anne Fadiman and Verlyn Klinkenborg, and was a recipient of Yale’s John Hubbard Curtis Prize in nonfiction writing.